


tempests and never shake

by lunarys



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, im sorry in advance?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarys/pseuds/lunarys
Summary: Travelling the world through dancing  was always a far-fetched dream, like kids wanting to be astronauts; except that despite the work he put in, Soonyoung never believed in himself enough to picture a future in which he lives with his dream job, but suddenly there it was, and somewhere between “We are delighted to inform you that…” and “Please indicate your response to this offer by…”, it crashed upon him what this truly meant. It started burning then.





	tempests and never shake

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to my first ever (finished) fic! im quite the ball of nerves about it, not gonna lie. but i actually like what i managed to write so here goes nothing.
> 
> major thank you to @vsyubs for beta reading this for me, i couldn't have asked for someone better. love you the most.
> 
> all this aside, hope u enjoy this soongyu and i hope more from the soongyu tag arises sometime in the near future. thank you so much for reading <3

Soonyoung stands by the bedroom door, fingers fiddling with the loose thread of his sweater and eyes trained on the precarious movement. Mingyu’s are on him and he is trying  _ so  _ hard to look at him but he can’t bring himself to do it. 

“Do you have to?” Mingyu manages to ask between hiccups.

“Goo…” 

“Don’t call me that,” he interrupts, his voice sounding harsher, like it hurts more to say than to hear. “Please.” 

Soonyoung lets go of his sleeve — the blue cable knit sweater was Mingyu’s gift and he doesn’t want to ruin more parts of him that he already has. It weighs in his chest and it pulls him further into the earth than gravity ever could and it  _ hurts  _ but it’s the choice he has to make; it’s the choice he’s made and he needs to face Mingyu. It’s the very least he can do. 

Something in his ribcage shatters a little bit more when he looks up to a Mingyu he never meant to cause — face all red, bloodshot eyes spewing tears down his swollen cheeks. He’s slumped over, more than he usually is, more now than the myriad of times Soonyoung nagged him to stand up straight. Mingyu has this thing that Soonyoung never understood but learnt to accept over time; he doesn’t like his height. “I don’t like to stand out,” he’s heard him say over and over again, stubborn over Soonyoung’s protests and rebuttals. It makes Soonyoung’s teeth itch how the person he’s so cataclysmically in love with feels the need to slouch to not be seen, because during every moment of every day they spent together, all Soonyoung wanted to do was let the world know who Mingyu was, why Mingyu was, everything Mingyu was. Mingyu is  _ his  _ everything.

Soonyoung knew he had to do this a week ago. He got the email he spent the majority of his life wanting to receive, saying he made it through the process he spent the majority of his life wanting to go through and the past few months actually going through.  He taped and sent in countless auditions and received nothing but silence from the other end, so he never thought he would eventually get in . Travelling the world through dancing was always a far-fetched dream, like kids wanting to be astronauts; except that despite the work he put in, Soonyoung never believed in himself enough to picture a future in which he lives with his dream job, but suddenly there it was, and somewhere between “We are delighted to inform you that…” and “Please indicate your response to this offer by…”, it crashed upon him what this truly meant. It started burning then. 

“Stand up straight,” Soonyoung says, one last time. One last time, Mingyu listens in silence and Soonyoung cautiously strides closer to him. Carefully, like he’s bound to break given the wrong move, his hand places on Mingyu’s forehead, softly swiping the overgrown bangs away from his face before dragging his fingers down the lines of his damp skin. Mingyu’s eyes never leave him. It’s a look Soonyoung loathes to the quick but knows he deserves, so he can’t fight it when their tired gazes lock. Outside, it pours.

Soonyoung knows Mingyu and Mingyu knows him and they know each other more than anyone. And there’s something about what they have, some synergy, Jihoon would say; and he has, several times, sometimes even adding “gross” as a precedent but all in good spirits. From the beginning of it all, so far-flung they can’t pinpoint anything, Jihoon always teased Soonyoung for being so close to someone younger but Soonyoung never found it in him to care. All he cared about was that he liked Mingyu and wanted him around, and his want became a need sometime between his voice cracks after his thirteenth birthday and Mingyu’s ear piercing in eighth grade. It’s blurry, but unexpected to him and Mingyu only. Everyone else knew and no one thought to stop it; Soonyoung and Mingyu were wind and water, together they made waves. They were a sure thing.

Soonyoung knows he’s in Mingyu’s space, but he’s never done this before. He’s never broken anyone to this extent and the last person he’d ever do it to is Mingyu, yet here they are. To have him so close now feels familiar, howbeit foreign; like he can feel that Mingyu wants him to go away but would pull him back in if he stepped out. 

Funny how twisted life is.

The sound of the rain crashing against the windowpane clouds heavy over them, only broken by quiet sobs that  could belong to either of them – Soonyoung doesn't know . The way Mingyu slumps on the floor happens in slow motion, it feels like. His back starts to bend forward again and the rest of him follows before he’s curled up, t-shirt hem pressed into his face, shoulders shuddering. Soonyoung stands motionless before Mingyu, or what looks like Mingyu, or what he’s turned Mingyu into. The only thing he’s sure of is that it’s his fault and as much as he wants to fix it, he knows there’s nothing that can be done. 

Soonyoung dwelled on the offer until the very last day. Before that, he spent a week looking around his current life. 

He doesn’t have much. He has his parents, loving and somewhat supportive of his every endeavor, despite his mother’s judging gazes every now and then. He has his sister, the best blood-related person he has in his life and that he so badly wants to help pursue her dreams in education. He has his friends: Wonwoo, so serious yet so amusing and the absolute best at uncalled-for philosophical points of view on their issues; Jihoon, who tries to look distant and bitter but is sharp and caring when needed; Hansol, who he can best describe as the purple aura of his life, sensitive and mysterious and empathic. They’ve wished him well with work abroad, some with hugs and smiles, others with pats on the back and dry chuckles. 

And then there’s Mingyu. 

They’ve talked about each other with each other under the warmth of summer nights with starry skies looking back at them, but neither were great with words, so they concluded that there weren’t any that were good enough for them. Soonyoung can only try to unravel Mingyu by associations. 

Mingyu is the orange sunset that glides over a calm sea, the racing of the heart right before a new year’s midnight. He’s back hugs, high-pitched giggles, and cinnamon-flavored chewing gum. He’s oversized sweaters and feet in hot sand during the summer; late night ice cream runs and intricate tapestry on the wall. He is warm and good and, most of all, everything that Soonyoung wasn’t born with. 

But what they were both born with was fear. Too much of it. 

Among Soonyoung’s friends, and family, and everyone he cared about, Mingyu was the last to know. It was that fear that held Soonyoung back. “Have you told him yet?” people asked. “How are you going to tell him?” his best friends asked. Soonyoung shook his head to every single question. He didn’t think about what to say until they met up today. He didn’t think Mingyu would catch on to the way he couldn’t quite look him in the eye. “You’ve been like this all week, all stiff around me,” Mingyu said, brows furrowed, eyes going dark and worried, and Soonyoung hated that look at him, wanted it all to end, so he blurted it out, blurted everything he had said a hundred times. This one hurt the most. 

The incessant burn in the pit of his stomach tells him to let some of the fear go. It’s useless, now that it’s all out and the damage is already irreparable, but he tries anyway; he sits down with legs on either side of the ball of Mingyu. His arms wrap tightly around him, as if it will somehow undo all the knots and right all the wrongs, even if his arms shake in uncertainty. But right now, what he can do is distance himself just enough so Mingyu can uncross his legs that are tightly knit against his chest and let them rest over Soonyoung’s.

It’s enough for now, Soonyoung thinks. Mingyu’s allowing him in and Soonyoung understands. His arms slip around Mingyu, hands clasped around his bent spine. Mingyu’s head finds home in the crook of Soonyoung’s neck. It’s a broken home now, and the body that could never fit right but always felt right is now limp. Soonyoung’s hand slides up Mingyu’s back and halts on his nape, fingers grazing on the shorter hairs there. He takes a deep breath in. Mingyu has always smelled so nice. 

He’s had talks with his parents before. Mainly his mother and mainly her talking to him while he pretended to listen, about the hardships of life. “You will have to make choices, everyone eventually has to,” she said. “Whatever you choose defines who you are,” he remembers hearing. At the time, he resisted eye rolls because nothing’s ever been that hard and was probably never going to.

Wrong. But even if he had listened to her then,  _ nothing _ could’ve prepared him for what is happening now. 

“The other day,” Mingyu’s broken voice croaks out muffled after what feels like hours. “Wonwoo was reading a poem from this book while we were waiting for you to get out of practice. Shakespeare, I think. And I was reading it with him. It was boring, but this one part sounded with me.”

Soonyoung licks his oddly dry lips. “Yeah?”

Mingyu nods once, smearing more tears on Soonyoung’s sweater. “It was about love. ‘It is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and never shake.’ Something similar. I thought about how that’s like what we have, and then you walked out with that smile of yours. And it just… clicked. It felt right.  _ We _ are right.”

“We are right,” Soonyoung repeats, low and rumbly against Mingyu’s skin, and the latter lifts his head. He looks at Soonyoung and Soonyoung looks at him — it’s home after ramming a wrecking ball through it, but everything is still there.

Maybe. It’s probably the desperation speaking. 

Mingyu runs his hand over Soonyoung’s cheeks, palm spread and mild over his skin, lingering for half a second longer when his fingertips brush over Soonyoung’s lips and catch on their dryness. His thumb moves over his bottom lip before he cups Soonyoung’s jaw. His face fits perfectly in his two hands and Soonyoung stays perfectly still, eyes fluttered shut and hand fallen limp over the boy’s shoulder, unsure of when to move or if he even can. His breath gets caught in his throat when he feels something, the faint outline of lips on his eyelid, then on the other, then down the bridge of his nose. They’re barely kisses, silent under the rain still pouring outside. Mingyu kisses the tip of his nose, both of his cheeks, and when he gets to his lips, he lingers. Heat spreads from the inside in Soonyoung and he subconsciously holds his breath, stagnant until Mingyu tightens the hold on his face and presses their lips closer together. In him something stirs, loud and intense, and he holds the hair on the back of Mingyu’s neck. Their legs are locked around each other and they’re a hair’s breadth from being chest to chest and it feels  _ right.  _ Briefly, Soonyoung wonders if he can belong to two things at the same time. 

The kiss is languid but full and fervent all the same, and it tugs hard and violent at Soonyoung’s heartstrings. He tries to pull away so it doesn’t hurt any longer and any deeper than it has to, but Mingyu only chases his lips and pulls him back in, kissing harder as if it’d make him stay. Soonyoung lets him. 

They both pull away to untangle and stand up, no second thoughts before their bodies are once again pressed against each other’s, lips hot and undeterring in another kiss. Mingyu’s feet move backwards and Soonyoung follows until the back of Mingyu’s legs hit the edge of his bed. He slowly sits down on it, careful not to break them apart and Soonyoung seeks after him until his head thuds against a pillow. The dim lighting from the small lamp on the nightstand is yellowish-orange and Soonyoung likes it on; the light diffused on Mingyu’s skin blends with his complexion and he glows softly under it. His hair is dark and messy over his forehead, strong eyebrows peeking through and his eyes are still red and swollen above his flushed cheeks and nose, lips reddened by Soonyoung’s own. With their slightly heavy breathing falling in sync, Soonyoung stops for a while to look at the boy underneath him. 

Mingyu’s chest heaves, his mouth is parted and he’s lethargic despite the desperation. He has to be the most breathtaking person Soonyoung has ever seen. He's told him this so many times over the years and Mingyu smiled and shook his head in response every single time. It's not that Mingyu doesn't believe him, but it's always somewhat comical to see blood rising under his skin before he hides his face behind his hands but not well enough to cover the blinding smile under them. This time he doesn't say it but Mingyu knows what his eyes convey and he pulls Soonyoung down by the collar, hasty and tortured. He feels Mingyu’s faint exhalation on his cheek as they kiss before he moves between his parted knees and attaches his lips to the curve of his jaw. He sighs as his hand grips at Soonyoung’s hair, keeping him in place, and Soonyoung isn’t sure if it stems from anger or if it’s Mingyu trying to tell him something. 

The burn simmers down to a low sting as Mingyu lets go of his roots so sweaters are discarded. His fingers return to his scalp yet not like before, running softly through his ebon strands instead. It’s good, despite everything. It’s good to feel Mingyu’s body heat as Soonyoung runs his tongue down his throat while leaving a trail of red and purple along the ridges of his neck, light enough to fade by tomorrow morning. 

All of this will be over by then anyway. 

Soonyoung’s train of thought stops dead in its tracks, and he jerks away. Mingyu is breathless and there’s something sunken and  imperceptibly  dark in the way he looks up at him. Soonyoung presses his lips into a tightly drawn line and looks away, feeling defeated.

“Don’t go,” Mingyu whispers, scratchy and scared, hands resting firmly on Soonyoung’s shoulders but not forcing him down. “Not tonight.”

“This is so fucking hard, Goo-ya,” his voice cracks at the nickname as he fixes his knees deeper into the sheets, Mingyu starting to become bleary before him. “You’re so good to me… I’m so sorry,” and his arms lose strength; he topples on Mingyu’s bare chest, tears running as the burn nearly chars his insides and strong arms drape over him. “I don’t know what to do.”

Mingyu swallows, barely audible over the rain but Soonyoung feels it against his temple. “There’s nothing to forgive… I wouldn’t have let you choose any differently,” he says. Soonyoung lifts his head enough to look at him. “I’m sorry for making this so hard. This is what you’ve always wanted to do.”

“But I always wanted to be with you, too.”

“Your fool’s paradise,” his lips stretch but it’s not a smile, and he thumbs over Soonyoung’s bottom lip. “I am so proud of you, Soonyoung.” Soonyoung knows how hard it is for Mingyu to say that, he can hear it in the way his voice cracks at his name. “Honest.” 

Soonyoung swallows down a sob. “I feel selfish and I hate it. I just… I don’t want you to wait for me because I don’t know when I’ll be back. Or if I even will.” A knot forms tight and thick in his throat as he tries to spew the next few words. “If there’s – if there’s someone else, go to them.” His fists ball up in the sheets as another tear slips and lands on Mingyu’s chest. “Don’t let me stop you.” 

It’s bullshit, all of it; that’s what his brain is screaming at him right now. He cannot begin to think about Mingyu burying his face in someone else’s neck, sleeping in someone else’s bed, spending a life with someone else, without feeling like punching a hole through the wall. He feels like he doesn’t deserve someone that good, so willing to suffer for someone else’s happiness, but he feels just as greedy to not want him to be with anyone else, but Mingyu isn’t some toy that he doesn’t want to share. Maybe this is a clear tell that water and wind are better apart. 

Or it’s the sudden insecurity speaking louder than he can think. 

“You’re so stupid, God.” Mingyu’s quiet laugh breaks in all the wrong ways. “We were born to live without each other but that doesn’t sound right, does it? I can’t get that through my head.” His thumb goes up to Soonyoung’s cheek, tracing patterns on it like he always does. “I may not be near you, but you won’t get rid of me. I belong to you.”

“And I to you,” Soonyoung breathes. A wish in stale air.

“So let me have this,” Mingyu says. “Let me have you.”

There are things left unsaid, unpleasant things neither wants to face, and they leave them be.

Soonyoung pushes up to take Mingyu’s lips in his again. He is slow and melts into Mingyu, hands roaming everywhere that is him. Mingyu is his, he always knew this, but now that he’s slipping away it feels more real, so he holds closer, grips harder, spreads himself wider over him. He’s still here. 

The rain is trounced by heavy breathing that fills the dimly-lit room and familiar noises that feel brand new. It’s new and every touch feels like the first one; Soonyoung feels complete here. He tastes salty tears on skin, wonders who they belong to – but that hardly matters. It hurts, but they’re each other’s, and no one else can ever come close, and that feels like enough to keep them going, at least for now.

For the time being, it can be okay. It can all be okay.

The rain has ceased to give way to the break of dawn by the time they’re both short-winded, Mingyu wrapped over Soonyoung’s back and their fingers intertwined over Soonyoung’s raging heartbeat. 

“When are you leaving?” Mingyu asks, voice reverberating into the back of Soonyoung’s hair.

“Tomorrow night.”

Silence hovers once again. Soonyoung doesn’t want to say it’s uncomfortable because that isn’t what they are, but maybe that is what it is. He decides he hates it. 

“Do you mind if I don’t go to the airport?”

Soonyoung hears his own heart shatter. “No. Not at all.” Even in pain, Mingyu worries about the other person more than himself – a reminder of what Soonyoung chose to leaving behind. 

He loosens his hands from Mingyu’s and turns around to face him. Mingyu’s limbs hang limp over Soonyoung. He looks exhausted, in every way Soonyoung can comprehend.

“I’m gonna miss my boy,” Soonyoung forces a smile. He regrets it, though. He’s been regretting a lot lately.

Mingyu’s fingers move to Soonyoung’s still slick forehead. “I…” Mingyu looks away, bites the nail of his thumb. Soonyoung hears his silent apology, his unsaid  _ I’m gonna miss mine _ . “I really can’t do it. I can’t see you off.”

Soonyoung breathes out slow. “I know.”

Mingyu closes his eyes. The curtains that they never drew close reveal the sunrise. The first rays spread on Mingyu’s back , a golden ring surrounding him as the light fails to grip the edges of him and spills thinly past. Soonyoung’s breath catches.

“An ever-fixed mark…” Mingyu mumbles. “This is a tempest, isn’t it?”

Soonyoung counts and recounts the lashes fanned out across the tops of Mingyu’s cheekbones. “Maybe.”

“But we did shake.”

“Shakespeare never knew what love is anyway. His marriage failed after three years.”

Mingyu huffs. It’s not a laugh nor is it a smile, but Soonyoung can’t ask for anything more. It strikes deep in him, nonetheless, a gash in the chest. He pulls Soonyoung in with one arm over the waist, breathing him in. Mingyu trembles slightly around him and he thinks maybe it’s the fear they still share and that they can’t rid themselves of. They couldn’t even if they tried.

“We’re still right, though,” Soonyoung says, looking up at him. It sounds like a prayer; he wants to believe. “Always will be.”

“Always will be.”

It’s not an answer, but Soonyoung knows better than to look for one.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and that is it, fellas aaaa thank u so much for sticking til the end  
> if u have any questions/comments/suggestions/anything let me know below or hmu on twitter @hoshigang :)


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